DrumKit Arduino: a modular, programmable robot drum set
DrumKit Arduino is a concept design for an educational product that brings together programming, music, math, and physics. A set of electric mallets extends the standard Arduino platform, allowing students to program an automated drum set while exploring rhythm and sound.
DrumKit was the result of a semester of design and prototyping as part of a product design course at Rensselaer. DrumKit was designed by Anasha Cummings, Joe DiLuzio, and Dan Zollman (Read more about the team…)
More About DrumKit
DrumKit includes several mallets which can be plugged into an Arduino-based hub. It can be controlled via Scratch for Arduino, Modkit, or a custom DrumKit library built for Arduino. This makes it compatible with other Arduino projects, while the mallets themselves could be used with drums or any other surface.
Our Design Process
On the way to a final product, we explored several approaches in designing an interactive device that would excite students and encourage discovery in music, math, and science. We built two prototypes—a laser oscilloscope plus the “Eduitar”—and brought them to a sixth-grade classroom in order to gather feedback.